Secret ballot on Oliver Towers?

The chairman of the Board of Trustees ofLansing Community College may have violated the state Open Meetings Actin securing support of board members for making an offer to buy Lansingcity property.

Board Chairman Larry Meyer told LansingCity Council on Monday night that he polled board members individuallyby phone on where they stood on a cash offer to the city for the OliverTowers property.

A lawyer for the Michigan Press Association said Tuesday,“If the decision to sell or the price came about through this pollingmethod, that is likely a violation.”

The attorney, Jennifer Dukarsky, said telephone polling is “a lot like a secret ballot.”

Meyer appeared before the Committee of the Whole toextend an offer of $2.52 million in cash for Oliver Towers. The Berneroadministration has negotiated to trade the former senior citizens highrise near LCC and a parking lot next to it to Davenport College for itscampus on the south side of downtown, subject to Council approval.

Meyer told the committee: “I polledevery member this afternoon. This decision was made this morning, Ipolled every member and have concurrence with the exception of one thatwas a voicemail and has not gotten back to me yet but I think that willbe fine too because he and I had talked earlier about this. So yes andthen we would have to go through the formal process of putting that inthe form of a resolution and moving that forward. That’s why I wantedto make the point that we had discussed it informally and then Ifollowed up today with phone calls to each one of them for concurrence.”

In a letter to Bernero also dated Monday, Meyer wrote that the purchase of the property is “critical for the future” of LCC.

“Therefore, we hereby offer to purchase this property for$2.52 million cash at closing, subject to the approval of the LansingCommunity College Board of Trustees.”

Meyer signed the letter, as did LCC President Brent Knight.

Asked by telephone Tuesday if his polling trustees violated the Open Meeting Act, he said, “That’s silly.”

“I had a conversation with each one of them and explained what was going on and got their opinion on it, that’s all,” he said.

“There was no decision made” by phone. “We will have a meeting to formally put it forward when it comes.”

He also said: “There was no resolution before us. I was only asking a general opinion about that.”

“In our meeting three weeks ago, this was totallydiscussed,” he said, adding that on the phone he was “just re-goingthrough and letting them know that there had been a new appraisal andthe new appraisal was actually under the appraisal that (the city) hadbeen talking about.”

Meyer spoke at a meeting at which theCouncil committee split 4-4 on whether to send the city-Davenport tradedeal to the Council for consideration. Five yes votes were needed atthe meeting, which was attended by all members. The administration’sproposal was at least delayed by the action. The administration waspushing for a Council vote on Oct. 24.